Software

Question

Vista and CD/DVD drive problems

After attempting to do an upgrade installation of Vista over XP Pro, I ended up doing a clean installation. For the first 5 days, I was able to load progams and otherwise use my CD/DVD drive normally. I attempted to install a program from my USB drive that ended up not installing because of incompatability with Vista. The following morning, my CD/DVD drive was not being recognized. I got an error message stating 'Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39).' I uninstalled the driver and then restarted the computer, with the same result. I then did a system restore, to the last time the CD/DVD drive was working, but still it is not being recognized by the computer. The drive is an AOpen DVD 1648BKH, which I purchased in 1993. The AOpen website lists it as an end of life product, which I assume means they are no longer supporting it. I cannot locate any CD with the drivers, and therefore I am not sure how to fix this, other than to replace the drive. However, I'm not sure whether the problem is actually with the drivers or something else happened to Vista. I was told by a tech. support person at one of the CompUSA stores that this is a known problem with Vista....that after attempting to install incompatable programs, you can have driver issues with devices in the computer. Does anyone have any thoughts about a fix?

All Answers

You really are not going to like this one little bit

The most likely problem is that whatever you tried to install that caused the crash is causing the DVD not to work.

Now as there is really only 1 fix for this you are really going to get upset as it involves wiping the HDD and starting the install from scratch again. But and this is very important before you attempt to reinstall Vista you need to wipe the HDD with a utility that writes zero's to every sector of the drive to kill off anything that may linger on the HDD and adversely impact upon Vista when you reload.

If you don't have a wiping utility you can use Boot & Nuke available here to download

And no using the Formating tool in the Vista Installer will not do as good a job as on the full Format it only writes to every third sector and the Quick Format only Zaps the MBR's so none of the existing data on the drive is touched, it's still there and can creep through on a new install and cause problems.

Ugh

Thank you for your reply, which generated an arrhythmia as I read it. Are you suggesting that purchase and installation of a new DVD drive with new drivers will not work? More importantly, does this mean that I am to expect to run into a repeat of this every time I try to load a program that turns out not to be compatable with Vista? Are Microsoft engineers getting too soft in the head??? There's nothing more gloomy than the thought of having to reinstall that OS again. I think I would rather just reinstall XP and deal with it.

Well it would be nice if a new DVD ROM cured the problem

But I honestly don't think that it will make an ounce of difference. As Vista comes on a DVD it must have worked to install Vista and if it was incompatible I'm sure that you would have run into problems then and never got Vista Installed.

I'll also admit to not liking Vista one little bit and I've had the production version since November in the form of a Volume License Enterprise Edition. So far it's only found it's way onto one machine that as a result of having Vista installed is no longer turned on unless I wish to inflict pain on myself for some reason so this doesn't happen much.

Before you go installing software that you are unsure of if it will work with Vista it may be worth checking out the Vista Forum here

But from my painful experience anything that causes the OS to crash on an install has so far always required a clean install. So I guess that you can see why I'm not turning on the unit loaded with Vista all that often and currently have no plans to either deploy it or offer any support for a very long time to come.

I know that the above will not make you feel any better but if you at least got a laugh out of it and can recognise yourself in the above you are at least half way there.

I should add this on last years Desk Calender I found this pearl which seems more true now than it did last year.

Microsoft is an acronym which actually means Most Intelligent Customers Realise That Our Software Only Fools Teenagers. After playing with Vista this seems so true.

Fixed!!

Fortunately, I did not need to perform a clean install. If you go to:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060, there is a solution to this problem. I removed the lower filters, and after restarting, my CD/DVD drive was recognized and operated normally. I do agree with you so far about Vista....I'm very unimpressed, and I suspect I will hook my computer to a piece of equipment I purchased about a year ago called BackupBox. (Red Paw systems) All I have to do is connect it via USB to the computer, and do a restore. It will bring my computer back to the exact state it was the last time I backed it up prior to installing Vista. I don't even need to reinstall XP, as this backup device will reconfigure the computer, replacing Vista with XP. Yeah technology! Boo Microsoft.

Don't complain you got lucky.

This must be a very common problem with Vista so they now have a fix for it. But somehow it doesn't fill me with confidence about the product. :0

If you have the hardware available I would do exactly what you have described as it's far easier to renew the install via a system like that than have to attempt to start from scratch and do it all over again.

But I did tell you that the DVD Drive didn't have anything to do with it didn't I?

Bad business practice

It seems to me to be rather pathetic that "reinstall your OS" is all too common a solution to problems in Windows (and not just Vista, this has been the "de facto answer" for hundreds of problems over the years from Win 9x to Vista). It would be nice if the folks in Redmond would get their heads in the game and realize that scrapping your entire system just because of a bug or error in the OS is NOT a viable option - particularly if it has to be done with some sort of regularity.

I've been trying to get a Vista-based laptop that suddenly (without any new software or updates being done to trigger it) stopped recognizing the drive in Windows back to working normally (And, yes, the BIOS still sees the DVD drive)... It's irritating that for no reason Vista has just assumed that the drive is no longer there or just refuses to recognize and use it. There's no excuse for this - and none of MS's solutions, updates, hotfixes, patches, nor have the driver & firmware updates been any help at all... Pathetic!

Please help!! I?ve deleted the upper and lower filters still at device manager it is giving error code 39 and when I am scanning for the drivers it is showing it is already up to date but showing device error.Even If I am booting with vista CD to repair the windows it is also not helping me.

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